UN chief says envoy to restart diplomacy for Western Sahara talks

ALGIERS, March 6 (Reuters) - United Nations chief Ban
Ki-moon said on Sunday he had asked his envoy for the disputed
Western Sahara territory to meet the Polisario independence
movement and Morocco to bring the two sides back to negotiations
to end their conflict.

Morocco took most of Western Sahara in 1975 following the
withdrawal of the colonial power Spain. The Polisario Front,
which says the territory belongs to ethnic Sahrawis, waged a
guerrilla war until a U.N.-brokered ceasefire in 1991.

U.N. attempts to hold a referendum on the future of the
region have failed since then, with the two sides deadlocked.

"I asked my special envoy Christopher Ross to resume his
shuttle diplomacy to create the appropriate atmosphere for the
resumption of talks," Ban said in Algiers after visiting the
Sahrawi refugee camps where Polisario Front is based in southern
Algeria, near the Moroccan border.

Ban has said he wants to relaunch negotiations to resolve
the conflict so Sahrawi refugees can return home to Western
Sahara. He said on Sunday he would call for a donors' conference
to raise funds for the Sahrawi camps.

Many of the Sahrawi refugees, who fled the fighting in
Western Sahara, have been living in mud brick houses in the
harsh Tindouf area in southern Algeria for some 40 years.

Polisario leader Mohammed Abdelaziz last week called Ban's
visit the best chance in a long time to reset negotiations, but
many in the Sahrawi camps are deeply frustrated over the
long-delayed referendum and lack of progress.

Polisario, backed by Morocco's regional rival and neighbour
Algeria and a number of other African states, wants to hold a
referendum promised in the ceasefire deal on the region's fate.

But Rabat wants Western Sahara, which is rich in phosphates
and possibly offshore oil and gas, to be an autonomous part of
Morocco and disagrees with Polisario over who should take part
in the referendum.

Morocco's king insisted late last year that only the
autonomy plan was acceptable. Rabat has invested heavily in
Western Sahara, hoping to calm unrest and ease independence
claims from the Sahrawi living there.
(Reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed; Writing by Patrick Markey;
Editing by Andrew Bolton)